Let Your Inner Star Shine at Act & Sip
A playful 90-minute acting class where you rehearse a sitcom scene, bring your own drink, and take the stage in NYC.
Bring a drink, pick a sitcom scene, and let your inner star loose. In this playful 90-minute acting class, instructors work the room pair by pair, giving notes on where to stand and when to look up from the page. Then the lights find you.
Scenes come from Friends, The Office, Will and Grace, Silver Linings Playbook, Sex and the City, and My Best Friend's Wedding. Nobody asks what you have done before, so first-timers can focus on having fun. Most of the room has not done it either.
Sessions run Saturdays and select Fridays, 5:00 to 6:30 PM. Viator closes bookings 48 hours before the class starts, and dates sell out weeks ahead. One booking covers up to ten people.
Act and Sip, A 90 Minute Acting Class with Drinks in NYCAct and Sip NYC · 90 minutes · 210 W 50th Street, fourth floorwww.viator.comWhat ninety minutes on stage looks like
Pairs get their pages first, then a stretch to read through together. The instructor circles the room, trims lines that are slowing you down, and points out where the laugh sits. You are paired with another attendee, usually someone you did not come with, and that holds even when you arrive as a group.
One reviewer called that the best part: "for a fun plot twist we got paired with people we didn't know!" The other thing to know is how the ninety minutes divides. Introductions, read-through, and every pair's turn all come out of it. Your own time on stage runs to a few minutes.
A 199-seat house with a show already in it
The Theater Center holds two Off-Broadway theaters, 199 seats each, and one of them has been running Perfect Crime in this building since 1987. The class works on a standing set. Bookshelves, a fireplace, a worn rug, a door that opens onto nothing.
Red seats run right to the lip of the stage. The lights, the set, and the sightlines are the ones a paying audience gets the rest of the week.
The studio behind the class
Act and Sip comes out of Russell Acting Studio, run by Catherine Russell. She has taught acting at NYU since 1981, and she plays the lead in Perfect Crime in this same building. The studio puts her count there at over 13,000 performances, a Guinness world record.
Her stated approach is practical, pulling from Strasberg, Esper, Adler, and Meisner across several methods. Reviewers tend to name their instructor by first name, which tells you something about the size of the operation.
Before you book
Act and Sip is BYOB, and the theater runs a bar with a full liquor license for anyone who would rather buy on the night. Alcohol is not included in the ticket either way. The room is 21 and over, and the operator states that rule twice.
No acting experience is needed, and pages are handed out on the night. Cancel at least 24 hours ahead for a full refund, and inside that window there is none. The operator can also call off a session that too few people book. Tickets are mobile, one per booking.
📍 The map pin sits on One Worldwide Plaza at 825 8th Avenue, the 8th Avenue corner of the block. The class is at 210 W 50th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue, which the studio lists as its main entrance, and there is elevator access to the fourth floor. The pin stands in because the building does not have its own map entry yet. All areas and surfaces are wheelchair accessible, and service animals are welcome.
Sessions let out at 6:30 PM, which puts you back on 50th Street with the rest of a Theater District evening still ahead of you.